4 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
SPROUTED WHEAT. 
When grain sprouts a portion of the starch 
is converted into sugar, so that the dough 
made from such flour does not rise readily, 
but has a tendency to form a heavy mass 
that will not make up into “ light loaves.” 
This chemical change is effected by the pe¬ 
culiar germinative principle called diastase, 
the resulting sugar being intended for the 
support of the young wheat plant. 
Bread made from grown wheat is still 
nutritious, though it has a sweetish taste, 
and is not so palatable as that from sound 
grain. It should be kneaded as dry and as 
hard as possible, and “ molded up ” three 
times instead of twice. Bakers add a little 
alum ; and though it is the fashion to com¬ 
plain of this in the newspapers, we are not 
sure that a little of it does any harm, while 
we are sure that almost every body likes 
their nice, white, puffy bread. This sub¬ 
stance is said to be peculiarly adapted to 
the flour of grown grain. Somebody says 
that a glass of whisky mixed into such dough 
does it good ; but this practice must rest en¬ 
tirely on “ somebody’s ” assertion until we 
get a different chemistry, as there is no 
theoretical reason for it to be found in that 
of ours. 
The presence of a very small proportion 
of sprouted kernels has a very sensible ef¬ 
fect on the flour—millers complaining of 
even one part in a hundred. For this rea¬ 
son the sprouted sheaves should be threshed 
by themselves, and the grain intended for 
market strongly winnowed to separate the 
grown kernels, which may be kept for home 
use, or if too much grown, taken for feed. 
No damaged wheat should be sent to mar¬ 
ket, as the depreciation on the price of the 
lot will more than compensate any gain in 
measure. Nor should it be saved for seed, 
as the growth of the crop would' be prevent¬ 
ed, or at least diminished, by just so much 
as the seed was damaged by sprouting, since 
the young plant would be deprived of a part 
of the food that nature has provided for it 
until it can take root. 
ANIMAL OE PLANT. 
The distinction between the two classes 
of living beings that appears to be so simple, 
is in reality, exceedingly complicated and 
difficult to determine. Naturalists have at 
times founded distinctions on power of mo¬ 
tion ; nitrogenized composition ; volition ; 
perception ; and, lastly, on peculiarities of 
respiration; but these have, one by one, 
given way before the march of investigation, 
until we can not now shy that a living being 
is an animal because it moves from place to 
place, gives out ammonia, obeys the impulse 
of its will, or perceives what passes around 
it and regulates its movements accordingly. 
These properties belong, or appear to belong, 
to some plants as well as animals, or are de¬ 
ficient in some animals as well as in plants. 
When Naturalists broke down the barriers 
that were thought to separate the two king¬ 
doms, they failed to construct others. Prof. 
Owen, in his recently published lectures, is 
compelled to avow that they pass into each 
other by such insensible gradations, that no 
man can say where one begins and the other 
ends. 
“BLOODY MURRAIN” AND “SCOURS.” 
There are some recipes going the rounds 
of the public press for the treatment of bowel 
complaints in man and beast, which we in¬ 
tend to compliment with more than a mere 
insertion. We made a list of them, com¬ 
mencing with “ Bloody Murrain—A Cure,” 
and including the article from our western 
friend, setting forth the unaccountable vir¬ 
tues of oak bark for diarrhea, showing how 
it brought away from him certain “ ulcer 
caps,” to the scandal of the regular doctors 
and the renown of his wife ; and how he 
finally, by the grace of oak bark, or a return 
to New-England—we are uncertain which— 
did recover; and how he contends, from 
these premises, that it will cure horned cat¬ 
tle. Our list further included the thousand 
dollars’ worth of steers killed by eating 
acorns—the cure for which is a “ plate of 
lard”—and concluded with the ” Runnet 
Receipt,” which we believe, after all, to be 
as good and as a safe as any of them. But 
the text has become so voluminous, that we 
must omit either it or the commentary. 
We suppose that by “bloody murrain” 
we are to understand dysentery, and that 
“ scours ” is another name for diarrhea. 
Neither of these diseases ever occurs without 
some cause for its production, and that cause 
is to be sought for in the food of the animal. 
The mistaken notion at the bottom of the 
treatment of such complaints, as advocated 
by the papers, is in supposing that the dis¬ 
charges are the disease, instead of being an 
effort of the system for the restoration of 
the bowels to health. 
When a person takes a pinch of snuff, the 
irritation of the foul powder on the delicate 
lining of the nose produces a flow to wash it 
away. When a grain of sand gets into the 
eye, there is an effusion of tears to wash it 
out. When any irritating substance is taken 
into the mouth, there is a profuse secretion 
of saliva by which nature attempts to wash 
it away; and the same holds true of even 
the outside of the body, where the natural 
process for removing a blister is by a de¬ 
posit of water under it to wash it off. 
Now if a person in any of these cases 
were to busy himself in endeavors to stop 
the flow of water from the irritated surfaces, 
and if he should succeed perfectly with 
astringents in doing so—or in so tanning the 
flesh that it should become quite dry—he 
would have accomplished a great deal of 
mischief. He would have completely thwart¬ 
ed nature’s efforts at cure, and she would be 
under the necessity of proceeding by a sec¬ 
ond and more circuitous route. A knowl¬ 
edge of these principles is the key to the 
successful management of bowel complaints. 
In the treatment of these diseases, thep, 
we say: 
First—Ascertain the cause. It may be 
feeding on frost-bitten grass; it may be from 
some poisonous herb, or from sudden change 
as from dry feed to green. As far as possi¬ 
ble avoid this cause. 
Second—Keep the animal perfectly quiet. 
It can not eat as much as usual; conse¬ 
quently it will fall away faster in flesh if 
allowed to run about. Besides, the restora¬ 
tion of the bowels from the injury they have 
received depends more on time than the 
the quantity of the discharges, while the 
evacuations are very much increased by 
walking. 
Third—In this condition of the intestines, 
on account of impaired digestion, the food 
must be more simple than that ordinarily 
used, or it will pass through unchanged ; 
thus increasing the trouble. The natural 
appetite of the animal when in this condition, 
will guide it correctly in most cases in choos¬ 
ing food from those kinds which it has been 
in the habit of eating. 
These circumstances secured to the ani¬ 
mal, it may take a few spoonfuls of milk 
and water, or molasses, or runnet, if any 
body will feel better for giving these medi¬ 
cines ; and if restoration should be attributed 
to them, we shall not dispute the matter, for 
we should never be able to prove the nega¬ 
tive. Yet we confess that it is difficult for 
us to see how even giving runnet is doing 
any thing more than putting another drop in 
the bucket of an animal whose insides are 
lined with runnet. 
But we can not pass the astringent treat¬ 
ment so lightly. We have seen so many 
animals destroyed by want of attention to 
the cause of bowel complaints and a reck¬ 
less use of drugs, that we warn farmers 
against resorting indiscriminately to this 
treatment, or reposing any confidence in 
those cow doctors whose whole method of 
cure consists in “ puckering up ” with oak 
bark, or any other astringent, and who have 
no knowledge of the animal system or of the 
cause of the complaint. 
REMOVING HASSOCKS OR BOGS. 
These pests to the farmers meadows may 
be got rid of in a cheap, simple manner, and 
now is the best time of the year to remove 
them. 
Take a sufficiently heavy log, one and a 
half to two feet in diameter, as required by 
the weight necessary to keep it down close 
to the ground, and of as great a length as may 
be convenient to work it, say five to ten feet 
or more. Hew off one side of this enough 
to make it lie level, then take old saw plates, 
grind them to a sharp edge on one side, and 
spike them to the flat side of the log. Now 
attach a chain to each end, and to the center 
of this, or a little one side of the center, so 
as to make it move angling ; hook on one or 
two pairs of oxen, and then move ahead. 
The saw plates will pare off hassocks, bogs, 
anthills, and other protuberances in the nicest 
and most efficient manner. 
There are paring plows also made for this 
purpose, in the form of a triangle, which are 
very effective, and may be easily worked 
with one pair of horses ; and as they are 
only about three feet wide, they can be used 
where stones and rocks are not too thick, 
and where the log would be too long to work 
advantageously. Such a plow may be pur¬ 
chased for fifteen dollars. 
